Ray Denenberg, Library of Congress wrote:
> and as a result of this discussion, what have we agreed to:
>
> 1. change from zero- to one-based.
Funny that, I got the impression that most people preferred
zero-based -- I certainly do. I also prefer start:length
because as Mike Rylander points out, it is more "standard".
Mike Taylor wrote:
> Where <start1> is a one-based character-count (0 is illegal) and the
> :<length> is optional. If <length> is negative, it counts backwards
> from the end of the string. So:
> No negative numbers, no special cases.
>
> Agreed?
Sorry, but no. What you're proposing does have negative numbers and a
negative numbers is a special case. If it wasn't a special case you
wouldn't have felt the need to add "If <length> is negative, ..."
If you want a substring that works from the end of the string
rather than the beginning have both "substring" and "r_substring".
Then you'd have no need of negative numbers and special cases.
Ashley.
--
Ashley Sanders [log in to unmask]
Copac http://copac.ac.uk A MIMAS Service funded by JISC
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